Wednesday, March 23, 2011

The first step is admiting you have a problem.

I have realized the title of this post, as I have been spending way too much time and money on records lately. I've had too much down time at work, and well I couldn't find anything else to do.This is a copy of The Effort's Iconoclasm. This has the special Newsletter Edition Sleeve, hand numbered out of 50. I've been trying to expand my collection of Iconoclasm, in my opinion it's the best material the band has released. The LP flows from beginning to end and each song all could be considered some of their better stuff. The problem with this one is that there are so many versions of it. Not to mention now that Seasick Records put out a second press, it's out of hand. It was already over-whelming with just Words of War Records.After I heard very late to the party that Blink's Enema of the State was put on vinyl by Mightier Than Sword Records, I knew I had to get a copy. So I went to the webstore and was able to pick up this copy on Yellow from the second press out of 500. I found out about this being pressed by chance, surfing up eBay. I was happy I did. These things are going for a good penny on eBay and there are several different versions, so that only adds to the collectors inability to hold back. No worries for me though, I don't see myself paying what other people are willing to for other copies of this one. This label also re-released Cro-Mags The Age of Quarrel, which caused a lot of attention. How this label is getting the rights to put these out is beyond me, but it's cool none-the-less.This is the last copy of Juggernaut that I didn't have. This is on white out of 252. I've got a decent collection going now of this band. I'm missing pretty much only the really rare stuff, so for the most part I'd say it's done. This is another collection that happened by coincidence. I was originally only interested in the s/t 7", but I actually gave the other material another listen and gave my bias a break. I picked up copies of the latest 7", demo tape and this LP all for pretty easy and cheap, so that's what I mean by coincidence, I wasn't trying too hard to expand.This was a big score for me. I've been wanting to get a copy of this for a few years, and they always go on eBay for like $40 or more. I was lucky to be able to snag this one for less. This was the first album that I can look back on and triggered me completely going after more alternative or unconventional I suppose you could say, music. I picked this up on CD like about seven years ago, when I thought the coolest thing was ordering CDs off of Amazon. I've come far.

Anyway for those that don't know, this is Underoath's They're Only Chasing Safety. This was what you could say was their biggest record as far as "breaking" them per se. To me this was the best this band was and ever will be, and I'm sure a lot of people agree with me, but there are bias fans of every album they've put out. This could be described as screamo or post-hardcore, more on what people would consider to be not hardcore related at all. This album just is monumental for me, I'm sure that most people can point back to one album that just kick started a lot of who they are today, this would be it for me.

So the white vinyl is out of 500. The whole pressing of this was pretty limited, like 1,000 or 2,000, thus why these go for a good penny. This album sold over 500,000 copies on CD, and their following album debuted at #2 on Billboard. So the fact that only like 1,500 of these were pressed, on like four different colors, it's all pretty rare.Back to hardcore. This is a copy of Uniform Choice's Demo 2x7". This is what I think is the second press, split release with Cargo and Headhunter Records. No idea how many this is limited to. If you know, please help. The original press was put out by Nemesis Records I believe.Here we have another copy of What's Done is Done. This is on clear out of 300. This is my second copy and my third, on red is in the mail currently.I picked up these two copies of the Youth Crew 09 comp from Chris, bassist of Mindset. The top is on orange out of 100 and the bottom is a transition from the black to the orange out of 40 or 50. Now I know that I paid too much for these, but hey that's my own ignorance, not Chris' fault. Either way it went to a good cause, to get Chris a plane ticket to go on the Praise Cali tour a little bit ago.